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The march was first planned by A. Philip Randolph, who was the president of the Negro American Labor Council, and vice president of the AFL-CIO. He had planned another civil rights march in 1941, but it never happened. However, the threat of the march was a big reason why PresidentRoosevelt wrote Executive Order 8802. This forced equal opportunity in the defenseindustry, which meant that all workers had to be treated the same, no matter what their race was.

If your present racist agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other black Americans who are only attempting to enjoy their rights as free human beings. That you and your Ku Klux Klan friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who are not hand-cuffed by the disarming philosophy of nonviolence and who believe in asserting our right of self-defense - by any means necessary.[3]